The rumbling of the remake bandwagon rolls on, and this time 1990 is the target, with Paul Verhoeven’s Arnie-starring sci-fi all set for a new treatment starring, and this is recently confirmed news, Colin Farrell. He’d long since been rumoured for the part, but now the casting news is official.

Producer Neil Moritz recently spoke to Collider and had this interesting nugget of information regarding the new adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s classic short: “”it’s closer to the book; the big difference is we don’t go to space.” That certainly might come as a surprise to those who have only seen the original film, which is obviously much focussed on Mars, eyeball-sucking and all.

The casting of Farrell is interesting. Although Total Recall is a great sci-fi flick, one of the (admittedly minor) problems it had was passing man-mountain Arnie off as a regular schmo. Seeing him wielding that pneumatic drill in the first ten minutes – muscles rippling – was hardly a setup that established him as a man who might have difficulty looking after himself, after all. That said, it’s one of the best Arnie films, so why should we be excited about Farrell taking on the role? Well, Farrell is a good actor, for one thing, and Arnie, bless his soul, wasn’t.

No, the rumblings of discontent come more from the choice of director. Len Wiseman, whose filmography includes such classics as the Underworld trilogy and Die Hard 4.0, is not what you would call a safe pair of hands. Let’s hope he can put out a great interpretation, and that Farrell can bring something new and distinct to the role of Douglas Quail (or Quaid, if we’re talking about Verhoeven’s film). No news yet on which surname his character will have.

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